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Monday, March 28, 2011

Author John Crawley Announces The Man On The Grassy Knoll

Author John Crawley's seventh novel is a work of historical fiction that introduces readers to Raul Domingo Salazar. During interviews with a visiting reporter in a Port-au-Prince, Haiti prison, Salazar tells his story of being framed by the CIA and the Mob to keep him quiet about the role he played in the death of John Kennedy.

"This is by no means my longest or most ambitious novel," Crawley explains. "It is, I think, my best. It's designed and paced to lead the reader into the prison interrogation room with the reporter to listen, first hand, as Salazar describes being recruited to work first for the CIA and then for Castro. Later he describes in detail how he was trained for that day in Dallas and how the entire chain of events was planned and how it all went down." The book is based on Crawley's 10 years of research into the Kennedy assassination.

The streets of Dallas in November in 1963 are recreated through the memory of the second shooter that fateful day. Raul Salazar tells his story, a confession of sorts, about his life and that of the revolutions sweeping the globe in the '60s.

"There's not one word in The Man On The Grassy Knoll, that isn't from the experience of Raul, with the slight exceptions of the notes that the reporter adds to the manuscript to explain lapses on the tape or reactions to things that Raul has said. In so doing, the stripped-down story, the terse prose, is all part of the conversation we are being allowed to listen in on."

As Crawley concludes, "Remember, this is fiction. Or is it?"

Other novels by John Crawley include Baby Change Everything, Among the Aspen and The House Next Door. Cover design by Bob Young.

About John Crawley

John Crawley is a graduate of the University of Texas, Austin. He spent the next 30 years as an advertising writer and creative director, developing award-winning TV, radio and print campaigns for clients such as AT&T, American Airlines, Disney, Jaguar, Mazda and Xerox. He is also an award-winning photographer, a father of three, and the husband of Michele – herself an advertising executive. They have two cats and a dog.